1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to data processing systems and in particular to utilizing a printer system within a data processing system. More particularly, the present invention relates to specifying paper type for particular printing jobs generated within the data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current printing systems utilized with networked data processing systems usually have media bins that are distinguished by an identifier. These bins contain media that is identified by a media name. Printing jobs generally select a printer and either a bin containing the proper media required for the job or a media name that identifies the desired media. If the bin is not-known by the print job generator and a particular media is requested by name, ambiguities may result. For instance, is A4 white the same as A4 White? If a printing system matches character strings to determine a requested media, xe2x80x9cA4 Whitexe2x80x9d would not be available as a media type if xe2x80x9cA4 whitexe2x80x9d is the stored identifying character string. The character string identifier method suffers from the ambiguity problems inherent in character strings. Such problems are compounded when print jobs, with media name references are interchanged among systems in countries with different languages. For example, in this age of Internet communications and Wide Area Networks (WAN), if a print job is generated in the United States and references xe2x80x9cA4 whitexe2x80x9d as the desired media, it is likely that the reference will be resolved improperly if the print job is sent to a printer in Japan or Germany due to language differences.
In most networked data processing systems, a printer server utilizes a specific system printer and a specific bin as requested by a computer on the network. This limits system capability since only one printer and bin containing media is automatically selected and any other printer and bin must be manually selected. Generally, the system does not search nor is able to respond with all available printing resources on the network that contain the desired media. Therefore, a print job may be applied to the wrong media or delayed because a bin is empty since the communications between the printer system and the computer is limited to a specific printer.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method that identifies specific bins on printing systems that contain identified media. Additionally, a system and method is needed that will provide a dialogue with a network print server that will identify each media source and provide information about the source including bin numbers, media names corresponding to the bin numbers and an identifier that eliminates the ambiguities related to character string matching.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide a method and system that will improve media identification and selection in a printing system with multiple choices for print media.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system to provide positive identification of media sources within a printing system.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and system that will provide an accurate and flexible media source designation scheme.
The foregoing objects are achieved as is now described. A registry is established in presentation architecture that provides a unique numeric identifier for the most commonly used media types. Logic checks a received print job and the accompanying form definition for a numeric identifier, a media name and a bin number in that order. Use of a numeric identifier eliminates ambiguity, caused by character matching, between a print job request and printer media availability. Logic then attempts to find a matching numeric media identifier, a matching media name or a matching media bin, in that order. If none of the identifiers are found, the print server directs the media request to the default bin of the printer.
The above as well as additional objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.